My YA fantasy novel finally passed the 50K word mark yesterday. Not much of an accomplishment for professional writers, but this is only the third time I’ve ever gotten this far, and the first time I’ve gotten this far while sticking very close to my original outline.<\/p>\n
One of my previous stories to get this far was The Game of Gynwig<\/em>, in which I veered way way way off my outline and the story turned into a complete mess. It was also horribly written, but looking back on it provides a good laugh. It was about a young boy who gets wrapped up with a group of wizards and witches who fight to oppose an evil wizard’s plot to take over the kingdom. I still like the characters and original story I meant to tell, so I might revisit someday. But no time soon. It has to be completely replotted.<\/p>\n My next attempt that passed 50K words was The Book of Harbringer<\/em>, my 2008 NaNoWriMo novel. It was about a banished prince who returns to his kingdom to oust an evil king. Very Lion King-esque, but much darker. It was completely outlined and I stuck to the outline. Unfortunately it was just too long and complex. After 50K words, the story had still barely started. I had something like nine characters, and I was spending a lot of time introducing them all. It might still work with all its complexity, but it was just too much for me to tackle as a first novel. I still really like the characters and the story I meant to tell, so I’d love to revisit this someday. But I think I’ll need more experience first.<\/p>\n Third time’s a charm, I hope. This time I kept my outline much simpler and have made it a point to stick to it. My current attempt is called Moonrise Ink<\/em>, and it’s about a boy who learns that he is the last wizard in the world and must use his powers to defeat a group of mysterious invaders. It actually takes place in the same world as those of the last two attempts, though I’ve edited the magic system a bit. There are references to names and places and magical items in those stories.<\/p>\n I’m not sure how much longer it will take to write this draft. My current guess is that 20K more words will do it, but it may be more. But I think I’m definitely more than half way there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My YA fantasy novel finally passed the 50K word mark yesterday. Not much of an accomplishment for professional writers, but this is only the third time I’ve ever gotten this far, and the first time I’ve gotten this far while sticking very close to my original outline. One of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[462],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-it","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}